Syracuse’s (3-5, 0-4 Atlantic Coast) recent three-game slide isn’t due to a lack of trying, head coach Dino Babers said during his weekly press conference on Monday. In fact, Babers believed it may the opposite — that his team is pressing at this point and needs to heed the words of advice his former head coach at Hawaii, Dick Tomey, used to tell him. 

“The line he used to use was, ‘try less harder,’” Babers said. “I think they’re getting out there, and they want to win so bad, and they want to do well so bad, that they jump. They move. They make a mental mistake.”

The Orange’s 35-17 loss to Florida State on Saturday extended their ACC losing streak to four to begin the season, their longest winless drought to begin league play since they joined the conference in 2013. In the week leading up to the game, former starting tackle Ryan Alexander left the team, prompting Babers to call him a quitter following the contest.

Matthew Bergeron, a true freshman from Canada, started in Alexander’s place and although he made a couple of expected mistakes, played well in the eyes of Babers. He noted that despite being a freshman, Bergeron is already 19 years old, a positive for both his play this year and his development moving forward. Babers also explained that players from Canada are often inherently “smarter” than their American counterparts, because they learn two languages growing up. Bergeron was part of an offensive line that has struggled of late but helped allow SU total its most rushing yards in over a month. 

“For the very first time it felt like we had series where we could actually run the football and move the football,” Babers said. 

Syracuse now shifts its focus to Boston College (4-4, 2-3), its opponent at noon on Saturday in the Carrier Dome. The Eagles are led by running back AJ Dillon, one of only five players in the country to have rushed for more than 1,000 yards this season. Babers acknowledged how big a part of the offense Dillon is, especially considering that BC lost its starting quarterback, Anthony Brown, due to injury earlier this month.

“Coach Addazio wants to run the football, he’s an old O-line coach,” Babers said. “That’s how they decided that they want to win football games. And we’ve gotta line up, match their physicality, and stop the run. If we don’t do that it will not be good.”

All three matchups between the teams since Babers became SU’s head coach in 2016 have been won by the more physical team, he said. Three years ago, the Orange defeated the Eagles, 28-20. In 2017, a Rex Culpepper-led Syracuse squad was no match for BC, which rode to a 42-14 victory on the strength of 193 yards and three touchdowns by Dillon. Last year, with Dillon banged up, SU won the rushing battle to the tune of 197 total yards and a trio of touchdowns by Eric Dungey. 

“It really comes down to elephants and hippos,” Babers said. “The more secure you are up front, the more things that you can do with everything else, if you’ve got a heck of a cake, you can put all different types of icing on it. And everybody likes it. If you got a cake that tastes bad, it doesn’t matter what kind of icing you put on it.”

Injury notes: 

• Babers said that he doesn’t believe McKinley Williams will be making his season debut against the Eagles. He was waiting on further updates later during the day on SU’s other injured players.

Published on October 28, 2019 at 5:14 pm

Contact Eric: erblack@syr.edu | @esblack34